Conclusion:
There are very conflicting results for normal values of white blood
cells and lymphocytes in pregnancy. In our study Lymphopenia and raised
NLR do not seem to be common findings in confirmed pregnant cases of
COVID-19 but can help determine morbidity as patients that had
lymphopenia and raised NLR displayed severe symptoms, were more unwell
and needed high dependency unit admission. The limitation of our study
is its small number but we recommend lymphopenia and raised NLR as an
important parameter for escalation of care.
Disclosure of interests: No conflict of interest for
any of the authors.
Contribution to authorship: H.Elhossamy came up with the
idea, planned roles, helped in data collection, data analysis,
discussion and conclusion. N.Korrapati helped in data collection,
analysis and contributed to discussion. F.Cole helped in data
collection, analysis and contributed to discussion. M.Srinivasan oversaw
the whole project supervision, helped in discussion and abstract
writing.
Ethics approval: Permission to handle and collect
anonymised patient data was gained through audit department at
Birmingham city hospital on 5/5/2020
Funding: No funding was required.